Sony Confirms That Digital PS4 Games Will Be Accessible From Any Console

Speaking at the Develop conference in Brighton, England, this week, Sony’s senior research & development leader Neil Brown confirmed that PlayStation 4 players will have full access to their digital games from other PS4 consoles. “You can visit your friend’s house, you can log into your account, and [you can] play any game from your digital library,” he told attendees.

Brown also gave some further insight at the conference into the PS4’s “play as you download” function:

“A similar system also works on Blu-ray, [whereby] chunks are automatically copied to the hard drive in the background. This means that after the first few minutes, your game can rely on having faster read speeds from the hard drive. [This]provides a better experience for players and is a completely background process for the player. They don’t have to wait for anything to install before playing the game. The game will launch as soon as the disk has been put in the drive.”

Our Take:The ability to access games that you paid for and own shouldn’t come as a surprise, especially since both the PS3 and Xbox 360 consoles already support that function. Owning a game disc allows you to play it on any compatible system, and digital games shouldn’t be any different. In light of recent concerns about DRM and the future of digital gaming, however, it is comforting to know that Sony will continue to support this feature.